Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis is part of the Pennsylvania State University Electronic ClassicsSeries Jim Manis Faculty Editor. Neither the Pennsylvania State University Jim Manisanyone associated with the Pennsylvania State University nor Sony Connect Inc. or itsaffiliates assumes any responsibility for the material contained within the document or for thefile as an electronic transmission in any way.Copyright ?? 2007 Sony Connect Inc. All rights reserved.Copyright ?? 2001 The Pennsylvania StateUniversity for the source electronic book file version.ISBN 978-1-4340-0106-1 Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis To Edith Wharton CHAPTER I The towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist austere towers of steel and cement andlimestone sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. They were neither citadels norchurches but frankly and beautifully office-buildings.The mist took pity on the frettedstructures of earlier generations: the Post Office with its shingle-tortured mansard the redbrick minarets of hulking old houses factories with stingy and sooted windows woodentenements col ored like mud. The city was full of such grotesqueries but the clean towers werethrusting them from the business center and on the farther hills were shining new houseshomes—they seemed—for laughter and tranquillity.Over a concrete bridge fled a limousine oflong sleek hood and noiseless engine. These people in evening clothes were returning from anall-night rehearsal of a Little Theater play an artistic adventure considerably illuminated bychampagne. Below the bridge curved a railroad a maze of green and crimson lights. The New YorkFlyer boomed past and twenty lines of polished steel leaped into the glare.In one of theskyscrapers the wires of the Associated Press were closing down. The telegraph operatorswearily raised their celluloid eye-shades after a night of talking with Paris and Peking.Through the building crawled the scrubwomen yawning their old shoes slapping. The dawn mistspun away. Cues of men with lunch-boxes clumped toward the immensity of new factories sheetsof glass and hollow tile glittering shops where five